Every year the Three Worlds Team has a staff meeting in the fall where we have a time of fellowship, strategizing, and mapping out our game plan for the next year. It is pretty much the highlight of our year each year as this team loves to be together and work together. A few things about the staff meeting:
Who Attends?
Everyone on the 3W Team attends and this includes the children. We have 6 MK's and 12 adults
Where is the event held?
It used to be held in Berlin, but we outgrew that. Now, we are rotating it to either support a 3W Family on their field, or a country where 3W is strategically investing and can encourage the church. This year it is in Rome because we are launching our "Italy Expansion Project" this coming year, and it is a time for the church in Rome/Ostia to meet the whole 3W team.
Why do you have this meeting?
The 3W team missionaries work on their own fields (in a particular country), but they also work regionally and support their teammates on their fields. Consequently, there is a lot of interaction and cross-pollination that is expected to happen throughout the year. We have many joint-projects, and by being together for a few days each year, we can cover all the work we are doing and discuss everything in detail.
Jamie and I also really value the input of our teammates and ask them to help shape 3W in all of its aspects. This is an opportunity for everyone to map out the future of 3W together.
Our time together also builds unity. We laugh, we share, we cry---we go through this crazy life together and with our kids. Unity is the most important thing at 3W--the highest value--so this is a wonderful time to be together and affirm each other.
It's also a time for our missionary-kids (Third Culture Kids) to have time together. They live unusual lives: Sometimes fun, sometimes dramatic, sometimes painful and difficult. This is a great time for the 3W Kids to see their "aunties" and "uncles" as well as see each other and share this strange experiences of living between worlds.
Lastly, while we are often communicating with each other view Skype and email, there is simply no substitute to having time together of long periods of time.
What kind of topics are covered at the 3W Staff Meeting:
We cover many things at the 3W Staff Meeting. The most important is the 3W Prism where we make sure that we are really all achieving our 3 objectives: 1) Engaging young people in cross-cultural ministry 2) supporting empowered and accountable leaders under 45 and 3) creating inner-connectivity in the Europe/Middle East and beyond.
We also review how things are going in each country (there are 18) and each mission-field where we have personnel. Every family gets an opportunity to share about their year (their struggles, their achievements, their hopes) and we map out the upcoming year.
There's also discussions about recruitment, internship, our tech presence, financial issues/accounting, fundraising, and time given to special events such as Conferences and Seminars that 3W is putting on. We also review the upcoming schedule of events for everyone in the upcoming year.
The days are long, but they are always fun and extremely invigorating. This year we will also be doing preparation for our first ever 3W Women's Conference to be hosted here in Rome in February 2014. We will be discussing with Pastor Daniele Santonocito all of the logistical details as we prepare for this big event.
Sadly, there are not very many mission-teams that are actually united and full of people that genuinely like to work together. Three Worlds is a real exception to this. We are very proud of our crew and proud of the fact that our nearly 4 years as a team has been conflict free and very inspiring for all of us and effective for the Europe/Middle East region.
Thank you for your support of this wonderful team!